Update - Version 1.03, Feb 20 2011
- You can now color bin less than 4 files, if you are not familifying.

Critical Update - Version 1.02, Feb 19 2011
- critical bug fix: If using "1 Grey" on hair where elders had the same color hair as adults, the files would break. (It worked correctly on hair where elders were grey.) This has been fixed.
- bug fix: Sometimes unnecessary grey textures remained behind in files, although the catalog had just one grey. This has been fixed.

Quick and Easy
Do all four colors at once! Do all ages/genders at once!
Do binning, 1 grey, familify, remove ages, brow gender, and compress, all at once!
Don't need SimPE (binning plugin)! Faster than Wardrobe Wrangler!

If you have mystery files not labeled by color, no problem! Just look at the preview picture. If there is more than one texture, the preview will say "image 1 of N". You can see the other textures by pressing the < and > buttons above the file list. Is one of the textures grey?

If your black (or brown or blond or red) file has elder grey, click the little round "black+grey" or "brown+grey" or "blond+grey" or "red+grey", to indicate which one you want to use for all four colors. (If you want each color to have its own grey, see Advanced Options.)

If your black (or brown or blond or red) file does not contain elder grey, and the elder grey is in a separate file, then click the "separate grey" checkbox and select the grey file.

If you don't have any elder grey at all, no problem. Things will still get binned.

Texture Image Preview
To turn image preview on or off, just click the "Preview" button
in the upper right of the Choose File dialog. To cycle through
multiple texture images, use the < and > buttons.

Bin and Geneticize
Colors appear in the correct bin, black, brown, blond, red, and grey, instead of the custom color bin.
Colors have correct genetics, black and brown are dominant over blond and red.
Binned hair is available to townies.

1 Grey (optional)
All four colors share one grey. If each color should have its own different shade of grey, you can turn off "1 Grey", it's optional.
Extra greys are NOT just hidden, their grey textures are removed. You truly have 1 grey.

Familify (optional)
All four colors are part of the same family, so the sims hair / eyebrows / beard don't disappear when changing colors!

Creators, you CAN have familified hair with 4 different greys if you wish. Just turn off 1 grey.

You CAN add more than one brown/blond/red to a family. Simply run binner again, with the same black color as the first time, and then select different brown, blond, red, if you wish. However, be aware that families with multiple versions of a color may not give the color you want when changing hair colors. They're useful if you want to keep the same hair mesh when changing colors, and you have more than 4 colors.
NOTE: If you make families of size 4+, and you are doing 1 grey, make sure the elder grey is in the black hair!

All 4 Colors in 1 File (optional)
If checked, black, brown, blond, red (and grey) will all be in one file.
This file will have "All4Colors" at the beginning of the file name.
If you want to keep your original files, check "make backup files".
Without backup files, you will lose your original files.

Decustomize (optional)
No custom star in the icon. Hair appears with Maxis hair in the catalog.
If hair requires a mesh from a certain EP or SP, select the EP or SP from the dropdown box.

Ages to Keep (optional)
Any checked ages will kept (if they exist). Ages will NOT be added.
Any unchecked ages will be removed (if they exist).
Any textures not used any more are removed.

Outerwear (optional)
If checked, allows this hair to be in the outerwear category,
in addition to any categories it was already in.
Do NOT use this option for combination hat / no-hat hair

Maternity
Maternity is always enabled, automatically.
You don't have to check anything, it just happens.

Backup Files
If checked, you get backup files named *.bak
If not checked, you don't get backup files.
Regardless, your original files are overwritten

Compress
There is no control for this, it just happens automatically when the files are written.

Known Issues / Troubleshooting

* Redrawing Bug: Sometimes when selecting files, if you hover over a file, a tooltip pops up showing the file's full pathname. When this happens, the file chooser may have trouble redrawing itself. Just click the file or another file again, a time or two, and it will fix itself.

* Don't forget to remove the old *.package files, keep the BINNED_*.package files!

* If BodyShop won't start, or you don't see your changes, you may need to remove *.cache files from your EA Games/The Sims 2 directory after binning stuff.

* In game, you might need to have sims use a mirror to change appearance.

Bug Fixes Needed
none at the moment

Features to Add in Future Version(s)
- make Mac version
- Familify: allow familify of custom bin wierd colors (will need to change UI)
- Familify: for those who want it, allow familifying of more than 4 colors
- Familify: for those who want it, allow familifying of less than 4 colors (someone may not have a complete set, but wants it familified)
- if multiple hair colors share identical bump maps, remove duplicate bump maps (most hair is not bump mapped, but a few are)
- maybe add Advanced option to add tooltips
- *maybe* add Advanced option to link to Maxis textures for certain ages and/or mesh groups, and ship tool with list of Maxis texture names and hair catalog pictures (thanks fanseelamb)

ThanksHUGE THANKS to all folks helping test, making suggestions, reporting issues.
Thanks to benrg, whose DBPF compression library I use (as does jfade).
Thanks to jfade for the Wardrobe Wrangler, which is still nifty for clothes and accessories!
Thanks to the makers of SimPE for a great tool. I used it along with BodyShop to verify that the hair binner works correctly.
Thanks to Theo (author of the binning SimPE_plugin) and AmberDiceless at MATY for helpful discussion, long, long, long ago.
Thanks to Phaenoh for her very good design suggestions, and for this great hair tutorial.
You can now do many of the steps in that tutorial with the hair binner instead of SimPE or Wardrobe Wrangler.